The latest Full Tilt Series of Poker passed its halfway point earlier this week, a milestone commemorated with Event #16. This 6-max no frills No Limit Hold’em tournament featured the biggest guarantee outside of the Main and 2-Day events – a whopping $1.25 million. That kind of money doesn’t come cheap, with the 1,341 entrants required to pay $1000 + $60 to enter the tournament. In the end, Event #16 proved to be so popular that the buy-ins swelled the prize pool beyond to a total of $1,341,000.

The host for this contest was David Pham, a Vietnamese poker legend with over $8 million in career earnings. As the cousin and protégé of Men “The Master” Nguyen, David began his poker career learning from the best. The player known as “Dragon” has gone on to win two WSOP bracelets, as well as bagging the coveted CardPlayer Player of the Year award in 2000 & 2007.

Mr. Pham failed to find the money on this occasion, but a few of this fellow Full Tilt pros managed to keep up appearances. Brazilian player Caio Pimenta added to his $2.4 million online winnings with a 13th place finish worth $10,459.80. Further down the pack were two-time bracelet winner Josh Arieh (22nd), UFC announcer Bruce Buffer (41st), and jovial veteran Gavin Smith (139th). Among the Red Pros who failed to cash were Erick Lindgren, Jeff Madsen, John Phan, and Vitaly Lunkin.

After the dust had settled on Event #16, the man left holding the title was sebbau, known in his native Germany as Sebastian Bauer. The native of Bickenbach has accrued over $1 million in online career earnings since he began playing poker in 2005. This was his first taste of FTOPS success, having finished 4th in the FTOPS IX Two-Day tournament in 2008. Just behind Sebastian was njw11, whose mother probably calls him Nate Wachtel. Based in Akron, OH, Nate has a total of $1.2 million in lifetime online winnings.

The final table payouts for Event #16 were as follows:

1st: sebbau ($274,234.50)
2nd: njw11 ($181,035.00)
3rd: MHE DOEDET ($127,395.00)
4th: MURIBE ($95,211.00)
5th: Shrubbery ($68,391.00)
6th: nyquilholic ($44,923.50)